What’s Wrong with D&D 4E Combat? How Does Enhanced 4E make it Better?

Combat in D&D 4E is Just Too Slow

So in Enhanced 4E we make DnD 4E combat faster. In our testing, the Combat in Motion ruleset increased the number of melee attacks per round by nearly 50%, meaning more opportunities to strike and do damage, and faster resolution of melee confrontations. Ranged attackers were also able to fire in circumstances where they would not have had opportunity to do so under the standard D&D 4E rules alone, making the shots they could take more effective.

Other actions documented in Combat in Motion empower entire forces to act at once. Multiple actions can be made in rapid succession on a single turn.

However, the rules of Combat in Motion have an even greater impact upon the perception of game speed. Much of player frustration in combat can be attributed to the impotence players feel while other players or monsters are taking turns. Even when a player is attacked directly in standard 4E, that player can do nothing. Each player simply waits passively (and too-often, inattentively) while time slowly drags on---until that brief moment arrives once again when he or she can take another turn.

Combat in Motion empowers all players to act at almost any time on any turn---not by adding any more immediate or opportunity actions to the game---but by giving players the flexibility to choose when to take the actions they already have.

When players are involved in the entire combat round, they perceive themselves as active participants at all times---no longer passively waiting through most of the game for their turns to arrive. The time between turns matters far less.

Enhanced4E: Combat in Motion for 4th Edition D&D---patience is no longer required.

Enhanced 4E: Combat in Motion is available in print and eBook formats from Enhanced4E.com and is now also available from DriveThruRPG.

The Enhanced DnD4E Difference: Entry 2

Chases and Races in Standard DnD4E vs. Enhanced DnD4E: Part II

Making the Attack

Now what happens when a running Ogre catches up to and attacks a fleeing Elf?

In the standard DnD4E game, assuming the Ogre was somehow able to intercept the Elf, the Ogre makes its attack with a +3 to its attack roll; the Ogre gains a +1 for charging the target and gains another +2 from the combat advantage granted it by the running Elf (in DnD4E, a running target grants combat advantage to all adjacent attackers).

The only effect of the Elf's motion is to advantage its attacker. But is this a proper reflection of the dynamic between the Ogre and the Elf?

The situation looks quite different over on the Enhanced DnD4E table.

Here, the sprinting Elf’s forward motion grants her cover from all melee, close and area attacks originating to the rear. This subtracts 5 points from all those bonuses the Ogre enjoys. The monster makes its attack with a penalty to the die roll, not a bonus: A penalty of -2.  In the Enhanced DnD4E game, the Elf is moving away from the point of attack. This makes her an inherently more difficult target to strike from behind. This motion away from the Ogre more than compensates for the energy the Ogre has put into its charging motion toward the fleeing target.

Escaping the Attacker

The differences between the standard DnD4E table and the Enhanced DnD4E table do not end there.

If the Elf is struck by the Ogre in the Enhanced DnD4E game, she has a number of defensive and counter-offensive actions at her disposal, which she can use to respond to the attack or mitigate the damage she receives. The fleeing Elf in the standard game can take none of these actions; she can do nothing to impact the game until her turn arrives.

When her turn does arrive, she will find that the Ogre’s presence behind her has brought her to a virtual stand-still. So far as the game world is concerned, she is no longer moving. Once two combatants arrive in squares adjacent to one another, the standard rules of DnD4E conspire to lock them together. The Elf must turn and engage the Ogre or she must trigger an opportunity attack from the Ogre if she attempts to speed away.

Her only other option is to shift a single square and then restart her run once again. However, this guarantees the Ogre will once again catch her on its subsequent turn.

She can’t escape.

How different is the situation on the Enhanced DnD4E table!

Here the Elf has never stopped moving. She remains in motion and, because she does, she may continue her movement away from the Ogre unimpeded by its presence behind her. She doesn't trigger an opportunity attack when she moves. Her sprint isn't even slowed.

Not only is the Elf free to keep moving without interference, the Enhanced DnD4E game is designed to penalize her if she does not keep moving. Because her momentum is carrying her away from the Ogre, any attack she makes against the monster before the end of its next turn is made at a -5 to the attack roll. Moreover, her pursuer also retains combat advantage against her until its turn ends.

Enhanced DnD4E models a chase sequence such as this as a fluid encounter. The combat itself is moving. There is no start and stop and start again for the combatants. They are carried along with the flow of the encounter. Forward motion is never penalized by the swinging of a sword (except where specified as the effect of a power). In Enhanced DnD4E, once you begin to run away, it’s difficult to stop – certainly when you've got a charging Ogre hot on your heels!

Movement and Motion

DnD4E has been characterized as a game that emphasizes tactical movement. But movement is not the same as motion. For example, chess is another game in which there is a lot of movement; a game where movement defines the essence of each piece. Yet in chess there is not a lot of motion. Neither is there much in standard DnD4E.

Motion, and its importance to combat, is barely modeled at all in standard DnD4E. Combatants only move as they move from one point of attack to another. Each clash occurs between fixed points. The confrontation is always motionless. While actions like “charge” (and some other powers held by certain creatures) combine movement and attack, the context of each attack is established by the fixed points of attacker and target.

Of course DnD4E is not alone in this oversight. To the author’s knowledge, moving clashes are not modeled in any miniature’s based table-top RPG or Wargame. But the universality of the oversight does not make it any less glaring. Motion is a very large part of melee combat and is a very large part of what makes cinematic melee action compelling.

Players of Enhanced DnD4E assume table-top roleplaying games should endeavor to model the dynamics and the drama of fantasy, medieval combat: Not just create a more complicated chess game. Enhanced DnD4E puts that neglected dynamic and missing drama back into the DnD4E game.

Enhanced 4E: Combat in Motion is available in print and eBook formats from Enhanced4E.com and is now also available from DriveThruRPG.

1 New D&D 4E Motion State

A Revolutionary Concept in Miniature/Token-Based Tabletop War-Gaming

Combat in Motion for D&D 4E is a book chock full of innovation. One feature stands out as perhaps the most revolutionary concept the book contains: The mechanisms for modeling the uninterrupted movement of creatures through multiple turns using only stationary miniatures.

In table-top, melee combat games, miniatures or tokens mark the locations of creatures in combat. Generally speaking, each creature moves in space only when its token is physically moved by a player. The constraints of turn order would appear to make it impossible to model seamless, uninterrupted motion. Instead, each creature may move from one spot to another on its turn---stop there while other creatures take their turns---and then move again if the player so chooses when its next turn arrives. Each move begins at a stop and ends at a stop.

Now it is true that players may still imagine a creature represented by a motionless token to be moving furiously toward some farther destination; rules are no limitation on the imaginations of players. However, absent rules to model its movement, this imagined motion has no impact on the creature. It may as well be standing still.

Now some tabletop games are explicitly dedicated to modeling constant motion. In a game like Wings of War, the miniatures always represent moving aircraft engaged in swirling three dimensional dogfights, even when these miniatures are apparently stationary.

However, Enhanced 4E is unique in that its stationary miniatures or tokens sometimes represent creatures that are motionless and sometimes represent creatures that are still moving. Creatures alternate between these motion states depending on circumstance. When a creature’s motion state changes from motionless to in-motion, the way in which the creature interacts with its surroundings also changes.

In Enhanced 4E, a miniature “in-motion” marks the approximate location of the corresponding creature, as that creature moves rapidly toward an intended destination. Enemy’s giving chase find that target more difficult to hit with close and melee attacks and the creature also may escape the explosive effects of area attacks positioned to its rear. Most attacks made by the creature itself are far less accurate.

Most interesting, the creature is subject to momentum that carries over from one action into another and from one turn into the next. A creature completing an action in motion begins its next action in the same state, subject to the same penalties and the same benefits (including increased potential speed). The effect, however, is to blur the lines between turns. Chases and races can be much more easily and intuitively simulated with pursuers following hot on the heels of fleeing adventurers, or adversaries racing furiously to grab the golden idol.

To purchase your copy of Enhanced 4E: Combat in Motion, visit Enhanced4E.com. Available in both print and eBook editions!